Al-Qaida have possessed tactical nuclear weapons for about six years, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported Sunday.
The Arabic daily reported that sources close to Al-Qaida said Osama bin Laden's group bought the nuclear weapons from Ukrainian scientists who were visiting Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1998.
The report has not been confirmed.
However, the sources said Al-Qaida doesn't intend to use the weapons against American forces in Muslim countries, "due to the serious damage" it could cause. But that decision is subject to change, the sources said, if Al-Qaida "is dealt a serious blow that won't leave it any room to maneuver."
The possibility of detonating the nuclear devices on American soil was also raised in the report, although no details were given.
I seriously don't think that any Terriorst Org would sit on Nuclear Weapons THAT long
What six, seven years now?
"A cult is a religion with no political power." -Tom Wolfe Pardon me for sounding like a dick, but I'm playing the tiniest violin in the world right now-Dalton
I seriously don't think that any Terriorst Org would sit on Nuclear Weapons THAT long
Right, because terrorists are all raving lunatics who don't comprehend the shit storm they'd bring down on themselves if they would set a nuke off.
Or they just don't care, because it will bring them to Allah.
Oh yeah, the nukes. I smell BS.
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
If Al Qaeda used a nuclear weapon against any american target, We'd Have Minuteman III's in the air before the mushroom cloud stopped glowing. I suspect AlQaeda knows this. Americans do not take kindly (As evidence by the knee-jerk reaction to 9/11) to being directly attacked. We would cease using Daisy cutters to clean out caves and commence direct conversion of the Middle-eastern sandpit to hot, melted Glass. especially if Bush is in office at the time of the attack. I can just see shrubby now:
"You are either with us, or you're Vapour. Your choice. They reaped the wind...now they will..they'll, well, they won't reap the wind again."
Chardok wrote:If Al Qaeda used a nuclear weapon against any american target, We'd Have Minuteman III's in the air before the mushroom cloud stopped glowing. I suspect AlQaeda knows this. Americans do not take kindly (As evidence by the knee-jerk reaction to 9/11) to being directly attacked. We would cease using Daisy cutters to clean out caves and commence direct conversion of the Middle-eastern sandpit to hot, melted Glass. especially if Bush is in office at the time of the attack. I can just see shrubby now:
"You are either with us, or you're Vapour. Your choice. They reaped the wind...now they will..they'll, well, they won't reap the wind again."
If we didn't nuke them in return, there would be angry, violent mobs burning down washington.
"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.” -Tom Clancy
Chardok wrote:If Al Qaeda used a nuclear weapon against any american target, We'd Have Minuteman III's in the air before the mushroom cloud stopped glowing. I suspect AlQaeda knows this. Americans do not take kindly (As evidence by the knee-jerk reaction to 9/11) to being directly attacked. We would cease using Daisy cutters to clean out caves and commence direct conversion of the Middle-eastern sandpit to hot, melted Glass. especially if Bush is in office at the time of the attack. I can just see shrubby now:
"You are either with us, or you're Vapour. Your choice. They reaped the wind...now they will..they'll, well, they won't reap the wind again."
If we didn't nuke them in return, there would be angry, violent mobs burning down washington.
Not to mention the long standing US policy of relatiating in like fashion to any WMD attack.
TheDarkling wrote:Who exactly would you nuke? Any random Islamic nation or a specific one?
Beat me to it.
What if the aggressors have no base, or rather, no single base of operations? What if it's just a network of people from around the globe with contacts and operations in the Middle-east, Asia, Europe and Americas?
Now what is the course of action? The populace is crying for blood after a major city was nuked a la The Sum Of All Fears, yet there is no real enemy.
TheDarkling wrote:Who exactly would you nuke? Any random Islamic nation or a specific one?
I doubt a random one. But if they could be backtracked, like they were in Afghanistan, the whole place would probably be glassed.
After all the work we've put in and all the time and money to "free" those people and now we nuke them because of a select few people?
I don't buy that. If the nation did it as an active mission to take American lives, then yes, it's a cassus belli the likes of which we've never seen. But a rogue terrorist cell with contacts in that nation, I think the blame game goes a tad too far in that respect.
It's a load of bullshit, and anyway the shelf life of Soviet nuclear weapons was only six years, and anything that went missing wouldn't have been recently remanufactured, so if they did have such weapon it would have an incredibly high probability of fizzling.
As for the reply, we'd find something to hit with a small nuke, while unleashing another conventional storm on such places as Iran and other terror supporters.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
After all the work we've put in and all the time and money to "free" those people and now we nuke them because of a select few people?
And so far they seem busy working to reinstall the same type of shitheads. So at this point I'm buying the notion of the Taliban hijacking the country less and less. Especially since they have a chance to change it and seem to be opting to go down the very same road.
And they helped in the nuking of a US target you'd better believe we'd nuke them right back. I'd say into the Stone Age but they haven't really left.
I don't buy that. If the nation did it as an active mission to take American lives, then yes, it's a cassus belli the likes of which we've never seen. But a rogue terrorist cell with contacts in that nation, I think the blame game goes a tad too far in that respect.
Except in that case they were hardly a rogue terrorist cell. They were allies and guests of Afghanistan. If they had nuked us, we would have nuked Afghanistan.
Besides, ridiculous hairsplitting tends to go out the window when mushroon clouds appear.
Stormbringer wrote:
And so far they seem busy working to reinstall the same type of shitheads. So at this point I'm buying the notion of the Taliban hijacking the country less and less. Especially since they have a chance to change it and seem to be opting to go down the very same road.
And they helped in the nuking of a US target you'd better believe we'd nuke them right back. I'd say into the Stone Age but they haven't really left.
Well, I never said I sided with them, I was simply laying the other side of the argument (and it does seem the middle-east has a passion for tinpot dictators and oppressive regimes).
The nuking I still can't see. If the ties were amazingly strong and showed the nation to have had a major part in the action then I can see an example being made of them, but I doubt it'd be as cut and dry as that in reality.
Except in that case they were hardly a rogue terrorist cell. They were allies and guests of Afghanistan. If they had nuked us, we would have nuked Afghanistan.
Besides, ridiculous hairsplitting tends to go out the window when mushroon clouds appear.
What I'm trying to draw up is a possible scenario (Heaven forbid) if such an organisation were to get a nuke or two.
I know there's no straight answer as we've never had it happen, but if a group with no direct ties to any one nation did this atrocity, I'd find it very hard to pin the blame on anyone. If the group was from France, would that enable a nuking of Paris, hypothetically?
Well, I never said I sided with them, I was simply laying the other side of the argument (and it does seem the middle-east has a passion for tinpot dictators and oppressive regimes).
Afghanistan isn't Middle-Eastern but it's the same deal.
The nuking I still can't see. If the ties were amazingly strong and showed the nation to have had a major part in the action then I can see an example being made of them, but I doubt it'd be as cut and dry as that in reality.
Which Afghanistan had with Al-Queda. Harboring them, aiding them, and sheilding them from the international community (as happen there) would definitely be enough to get them nuked.
What I'm trying to draw up is a possible scenario (Heaven forbid) if such an organisation were to get a nuke or two.
I know there's no straight answer as we've never had it happen, but if a group with no direct ties to any one nation did this atrocity, I'd find it very hard to pin the blame on anyone. If the group was from France, would that enable a nuking of Paris, hypothetically?
Again, it would depend on support. If they were actively hunting them out, not fucking likely. If they were simply turning a blind eye, perhaps. If they were aiding and abetting them it's pretty likely.
I doubt we'd have blown away Kabul if 9-11 had been nuclear, for example, but we'd probably have used small devices against training camps, supply depots, maybe Taliban military targets. And we might have broken out the nerve gas (assuming we have any left) against those caves.
Similarly, if there was a nuclear terrorist attack, we'd probably use nukes on whatever fixed terrorist assets there were to be found, and if the country in question was lending support to them, then against their military. I just can't see us glassing a city full of civilians for revenge.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
Depends on how many people we lost ourselves. If we somehow lost a million people if NYC got nailed, I don't think glassing Kabul would have been unlikely.
Similarly, if there was a nuclear terrorist attack, we'd probably use nukes on whatever fixed terrorist assets there were to be found, and if the country in question was lending support to them, then against their military. I just can't see us glassing a city full of civilians for revenge.
We wouldn't. Paranoid fantasies, nothing more.
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
Howedar wrote:Depends on how many people we lost ourselves. If we somehow lost a million people if NYC got nailed, I don't think glassing Kabul would have been unlikely.
if a million poeple were hit like that we'd have good ol' boy suicide bombers from Texas and Albama blowing themselves up at arabic embassies. Christ, i don't even want to think of the reprecussions of that kind of attack... I imagine NRC and IAEC inspectors would trace the fissionable material to a point of origin and we'd lob W-88's accordingly.
"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.” -Tom Clancy
Similarly, if there was a nuclear terrorist attack, we'd probably use nukes on whatever fixed terrorist assets there were to be found, and if the country in question was lending support to them, then against their military. I just can't see us glassing a city full of civilians for revenge.
We wouldn't. Paranoid fantasies, nothing more.
We're the only nation to use nuclear weapons in combat and that was against a city. I wouldn't rule it out at all.
Similarly, if there was a nuclear terrorist attack, we'd probably use nukes on whatever fixed terrorist assets there were to be found, and if the country in question was lending support to them, then against their military. I just can't see us glassing a city full of civilians for revenge.
We wouldn't. Paranoid fantasies, nothing more.
We're the only nation to use nuclear weapons in combat and that was against a city. I wouldn't rule it out at all.
In WWII, after all options were exhausted. For terrorist sects I can't see us using nukes, since military operations designed to bring those reponsible to justice likely wouldn't require hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to die, unlike Japan.
Now if North Korea were to somehow nuke us (which they can't, but if they could), that would be a different story.
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
